it’s a sweet looking rodent
Unfortunately, compared to something like this… Mantic falls far short yet again. They really need to hire a top tier sculptor.
Well we deliberately tried not to plagiarize GW’s designs as the above image does quite flagrantly. What would you be looking for in terms of improving the range?
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It does copy the GW design significantly, that is true. Originality is such a difficult task to achieve.
If I were a Mantic Art Director I would look to improve the overall anatomy of most of the range of figures. For instance - the ratkin models are far too bulky in appearance, ie, the wretches should be emaciated looking; and they look like they are body builders.
The Northern Alliance figures are a range that is on the right track. They are appealing to collectors, however there are a number of factions that the miniatures look anatomically disproportionate.
Example: Ogres
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I think that that might be coming down to personal preference, but I I were to offer a contrasting view - keeping the wretches and warriors the same size means that parts can be swapped freely between them. There’s no absolute rule that says rat-people must be of a set shape or size, so we favoured cross-compatibility. Some people don’t like the result, some people do, as it always happens.
Ogres, at least the PVC models, are due an update but there’s only so many resources to go around, so we get to it when we get to it.
Any comments on the sculpting itself? You seemed unhappy with our current sculptors’ work. Which models do you think came out well?
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I find PVC Ogres better than the new Ogres, but that is just me.
Just wanted to pipe in here @Dave to offer another opinion.
While I am not a Ratkin person, I do value the cross campatibility of your models in general and love the extra bits and pieces that usually come with the models that can be used for all kinds of shennigans.
I did quite a lot of rearranging of weapons, bits, arms and shields on your older Elf range and loved every minute of it, so as far as I’m concerned: Yes please do definitely keep that feature. 
Oh and yeah ,… I am so looking forward to your new Drakon Riders, so my Elf army finally gets some recent models as well 
(Just hope you kept the scale more or less the same in comparison to the old ones :fingers crossed: … otherwise i ll have a lot of converting work to do … )
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I actually really appreciate the Mantic analogue (bone armor rats with two-handed weapons, seen above), especially when you consider that Shock Troops in 3E vaguely combined Shock Troops and Blight from 2E, which the bone armor nods to - as well as the plague pots!
These not-stormvermin are … fine, if the point is to print your own not-stormvermin. Frankly I find 3D sculpts that mimic the (GW) originals to be some of the least interesting sculpts. I have a printer fully capable of churning these sort of things out, but a) I don’t want to because they’re boring and b) I get the warm fuzzies from being able to buy stuff from my LGSes, which sadly don’t carry resin (yet). But which have oodles of shiny plastic stormvermin waiting should I need them.*
[GW is a special case tho where the cost involved with some pieces is so high or the availability so artificially low that there’s an added impetus to 3D printing knock-offs. That and I hate mold lines so very much at this point 
]
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Its all good as long as they sell and make a profit for the company… and having pieces that are interchangeable is a great benefit.
Merely a viewpoint, but this must be mentioned - I personally would rather have figure purchases made for Kings of War armies to be MANTIC miniatures, and not 3D files from all over cyberspace. ( Side Bar: old GW army figures will always be in use of course ). Thus far, at least along an area of Eastern U.S. gaming communities - this is not the case, why? Mantic prices are extremely reasonable, availability is a non issue as well. The interest is growing steadily in the 3rd ed. rule set which is great. I just see way too much ‘proxy’ use.
Let’s see what the armies look like once COVID clears for tournaments.
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I think you meant to say ‘counts as’ 
While I’m rapidly running out of space for all these KOW projects, I still look forward to making a full Mantic army. Holding out for the release of the placoderms from Infamy to make that a reality - I just need 3 readily available sculpts and I can make my dream of a literal wall of armored fish men a reality 
But right, we were talking about rats! Since it was asked, my favorite Ratkin:
- Mutant Rat Fiend
- Death Engine
- Skudz
- Brute Enforcer (as well as the Infamy brute, forgot about him!)
- Birthing Daughter
- Hard plastic rat set (but specifically the shock troops)
Related, nice article I hadn’t seen: Designing the Ratkin - Mantic Games
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Rat Fiend is a fail for me. Why? No options. There should be some extra bits to make each one unique. Extra head or arms or something. Then you could have 2 in your army without them looking exactly the same
Doing a full mantic army is a nice idea that went out the window when so much became resin for me. Resin needs a proper set up to work with or to be done outside unless you want lung rot. The last 6 months have been too cold to work outside so several models I got from Mantic have sat on the shelf until I lost interest. Making a big monster in resin because it’s cheaper is nice but single hero characters feel better to me if they’re done in metal. There’s less risk to health, easier to work with and they bend rather than break if they hit the floor. If I have the choice between a commercial resin sculpt I really like or one I find meh but can 3D print I will always pick the later. It’s much easier to clean up a 3D print properly supported than removing the mold lines around every single commercial piece. It’s hours of work less which has to be done wearing safety gear.
Whoever Mantic hires to sculpt things has never been between someone’s legs before (excuse the vulgarity). The Salamander models are fantastic until you try painting them and find they melt between the legs. You go from sharp detail to everything being blurry and smudged together. They’re supposed to have something on their bums but god knows what because either the casting messes up or they said screw it and left it half finished. The leg plates merge into the flesh with no distinctions between the two. It’s one of the things which really bother me with Mantic where I’m hesitant to buy models from them. You never know how soft the details are going to be or if you’re getting some PVC thing which barely fits together. Buying from Mantic is similar to having one of those Jelly Belly packs where half the beans taste terrible and half taste great while looking the same. If they could fix their stuff so it’s all nice I would buy (plastic and metal) mantic models as fun projects all the time.
The rat kin rank and file look great. I’m excited to see what people do with them and (issues above not present) I hope to build a diorama with them in the near future. The Dead zone cross over doesn’t fit very well and is dragging old PVC into the new line which is a bit of a let down. The winged rat demon is a real gem and I can’t wait to see some top tier painters slap some paint on it and see where that goes.
I like the new ratkin but I’m afraid some of them have some of the same leg issues as you point out among the salamanders. Some I had paint a line myself and some were auto-fixed by earthshade, so not quite as bad. But if you put on a too thick coat of paint down there, you kinda gotta make some decisions yourself. 
Well bugger. Does any one have a clue why Mantic keep doing this? They’ve been trying to push away from the budget GW market they traditionally had and this is a huge downside to their models.
It’s a tooling concern for the sprues. The Salamanders were worse off for it which is why almost all of the HIPS ratkin have one leg split off from them to lessen the undercuts. On HIPS plastic you cannon have undercuts of any kind.
This actually occurs on many plastic kits, even including those that GW produce. Hard Plastics is an unforgiving material.
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I’ve not bought GW in years so I wouldn’t know how their kits worth now.
What is it that’s specific to the groin area that causes issues?
It’s where the mold closes. If you have legs in a neutral pose, then it’d be easy, but also very boring. You want varied poses which don’t also go in line with where the mold closes, so you try to get the best of both worlds - making something that looks good but also can be made with the mold.
If there’s anything hanging down (like a tabard) then it has to be filled in. Even without that, the area has to be made flat in some way so that you can pull the two halves of the mold apart without destroying the model.
PVC has some give to it. Resin and metal have rubber molds. HIPS is where this is an issue.
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Here is a photo where you can see some leg details.
On the middle one I drew an extra black line of my own to increase the separation between the cloak and the cloth on the leg. On the other two models, earthshade made a sufficient shade in the narrow recess that I didn’t need to add a line there. So it seems to depend on how hard you hit it with the undercoat/base coat.
Also I agree that the one leg I had to glue on myself did add to the level of detail, even if I was surprised having to glue a leg on, I can now appreciate it, knowing more about the process (and noticing now that the detail is crisper on that leg compared to the one in the main mold).
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